Queen of Cups
by hikomokushi
Summary: He’d felt saner when he was mad. KakaSaku. For 30romances community on LiveJournal.


**Title:** Queen of Cups  
**Author:** Hiko Mokushi  
**Fandom:** Naruto  
**Theme:** #27 — **Love**, hate and the like ; **emotions  
Pairing:** Hatake Kakashi x Haruno Sakura  
**Rating:** R  
**Warning:** Character death, language, implied sexuality  
**Disclaimer:** Kishimoto-sensei owns Naruto.  
**Summery:** He'd felt saner when he was mad.

**Author Notes:** Written for the **30romances** community on LiveJournal. I had originally written this as the beginning of a longer story, not for Naruto but Rurouni Kenshin, under AoshixMisao. But. . . personally, I like it better here. Aoshi and Kakashi are rather similar characters in my head, in terms of what fuels them in life and how they deal with their losses.

_p.s. I am having a love-affair with italics. :)  
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_"It's still their world, Wesley. Structured for power - not truth. It's their system, and it's one that works. It works because … there is no guilt … there is no torment, no consequences. It's pure. I remember what that was like. Sometimes I miss that clarity." _**–**Angel**, Angel: the Series, Episode 21, 'Blind Date.'**

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His cup is only half-empty in his hand.

A bandage tightens around his bicep, cutting circulation. "Now that that's done, how about some more tea?"

The voice in his head is attached to a body that has two visuals.

The man glances up and gives a single nod, which she is more than willing to leap into action at, and he stares at the girl that he raised and wonders where he went so wrong. When his mind betrayed his eyes and when his mind betrayed his heart. When the name Haruno Sakura suddenly was affixed to a number of emotions, ranging good and bad and _incomprehensible_. Since when could a heart pull in two absolutely opposite directions?

He can recall a time—but there was so much more understanding then. So much more emotion.

_No, that's not true_.

Maybe the emotion wasn't the right emotion.

The Sakura in his heart was a grand mischief-maker: a small-figured young woman, who still dressed like a twelve year old and seemed to think that less was more and everything else in between that was wrong.

The Sakura in his head half the time didn't have clothes.

There were times when in his own mind, he knew that he wasn't doing what he should. Times when he couldn't look at himself, and times when if he would have looked at himself he knew he'd try to gouge his own eyes.

_His mind needed to take a dip in some cold water_.

"Hai. Arigatou."

He'd once heard life described in the single aspect of a cup of water.

The older you are, the bigger the cup.

The bigger the cup, the more liquid you need. The more source(s) you need.

He'd once grudgingly given Genma the satisfaction of opportunity to remark that he needed to _filled_ in more ways than one.

Hatake Kakashi did not need filled. Not by some common prostitute who would gladly whore herself out for a ryo or two. There was more to the Cup That Is Kakashi than the mere idea of finding something and filling it up. The Cup of Kakashi needs something that is _worth_ Kakashi to fill it with it. If he was even worth anything at all.

There's a clarity that comes when somebody gives you a command.

The feel of the kunai in his hand, strong and powerful.

The cool metal warm against his skin.

There was always clarity in that. If there wasn't that thin scrap of cloth there, he knows that his palm would be _sweating_. If his palms were sweating then the kunai could _slip_. If the kunai could slip then he could _slip up_. And if he could slip up, then Hatake Kakashi would have just _lost_ and _losing_ wasn't something his mind could handle.

He keeps to himself to regain that clarity in a way that doesn't make him want to cut out his own heart.

There are other ways he could think to get that clarity, but he's walked one of those paths before, he's seen the direction that it can take and the _clarity_ that he receives is only a temporary state – _and then he needs more_ – and the other way is such that he can't think to look at himself again.

His eyes are closed because people are distractions.

She still sips her tea like the little girl; the gentle sound of sucking in half the tea you wanted with half the air you didn't.

"Oooh." The sound is worse when it enters his brain. The images it brings reminds him of why he spends his days alone. They flash over the red-black screen of his closed eyelids and he knows opening them will only bring more. "It's raining. We should get back."

He can still remember their faces, etched in his own mind.

_She was worth ten times over in his heart._

"Aa."

Sensei still smiles in his mind, claps his shoulder, blonde hair like a halo on his head.

Obito still laughs in his mind, hidden tears behind his goggled eyes, forever trying to impress his beloved.

Rin's smile is beautiful in his mind, but her brown eyes are bittersweet.

There is no longer a _half-empty_ for Hatake Kakashi.

There certainly was never a _half-full_.

Pushing himself to his feet, he follows her silently, a hand still pressed against his kunai like he always has done. There is a clarity that comes when he can feel it against his bare fingers, even if it's just the tips. Their cold light has always gleamed along with his anger, and he knows that he's seeped a hate into them that they've never known before.

Friends' faces flash before his eyes and he wishes for that clarity in the order of killing.

The satisfaction in seeing the black light the kunai reflected as they moved swiftly in his hands and carried out the command that he was forced to carry without a second thought.

It was when the killing was second-nature that it became something wrong.

He can almost feel the hate he's pushed into the kunai when he touches the metal at the right angle, and he pains that his clarity is the sanity of a crazed man.

There never was even a cup for Hatake Kakashi.

No water, no source(s), no feelings, no nothing.

He stares at the ribbon on the back of her sun dress as she walks in front of him and imagines him _pulling_.

"You should go inside before you catch a cold."

She turns and he stares at the water droplets that swim down her face and replaces them with his hands. His face burns even though he knows he doesn't blush.

The ways her eyes look at him go straight to his crotch.

_Fuck filling the cup_.

It is much more satisfying to smash it against a wall.

He misses the anger.

He'd felt saner when he was mad.

A single step and he's ruined it.

He remembers Obito and he remembers words and blood and the sword in his hand and reflections of black light as he ignored the feelings and went straight for the anger for the clarity for the knowingknowingknowing that somethingsomething was right inside his head and he wasn't so screwed up.

His heart says yes and his mind says no and half the times they've reversed places.

He remembers the pain and the burning fire that seared his eye.

He remembers the sound of bodies thudding to the ground and of the stench of blood that curled his lip and almost made him vomit.

_I'm. . . the only one. . . who didn't. . . get you a present. I. . . figured it. . . out. Don't worry. It's not useless. . . baggage. . ._

Her breath is harsh and sweet and everything in between against his face.

Can a cup be filled and smashed at the same time?

He tries to stop.

There's no anger in this—there's feeling and something that he hasn't felt ever in his entire life.

He remembers Sasuke promising death.

His anger makes him wish he'd taken it.

Big hands splay on her waist and in a moment, she's brought her head up and pale cherry lips are pushed awkwardly against his own and he's _breathing_ her. For a moment he _can't_ breath and his cup is _cracking_ when he pushes her up against the hospital wall and licks at her throat.

"Not in public, Kakashi," are the words that whisper across his mind when her lips find his ear. She pushes him off, but takes his hand.

When she pulls away there's an anger that clears his head.

Her hand is warmer than the metal of his kunai.


End file.
